His Role Is to Give Them the Gate : Classic: Assistant starter Jay Slender sees to it that Bertrando begins his races as smoothly as possible.

The day in August that Bertrando ran in the $1-million Pacific Classic, Jay Slender took the 100-mile train trip from Los Angeles to Del Mar, arriving shortly before the race.

Bertrando is a free-running horse who loves to set the pace, and his special chaperon is Slender, a 33-year-old assistant starter and son of Tucker Slender, the official starter at Santa Anita and Del Mar.

Bertrando won the Pacific Classic by three lengths, ending a five-race, seven-month losing streak.

Part of a favored three-horse entry in today’s $3-million Breeders’ Cup Classic, Bertrando is a top candidate for horse of the year. Almost as important as trainer Bobby Frankel’s preparation and Gary Stevens’ ride is that the 4-year-old colt get out of the gate smoothly. As an assistant starter, Jay Slender will be assigned to Bertrando, as he has been for most of the horse’s races in California.

Assistant starters are the ones who get the horses into the starting gate. Many of them have suffered broken bones in the line of duty, although Jay Slender has escaped so far.

Slender is the starter--the one who pushes the button allowing the gate to open--for quarter horses at Los Alamitos and a regular assistant starter for his father’s gate crew at Santa Anita. He wasn’t working at Del Mar this summer, but was still there to make sure Bertrando didn’t have any problems.

“Bertrando’s big and powerful,” Slender said. “He explodes out of the gate. He’s the fastest leaving the gate in the first jump that I’ve ever seen. Usually a big horse takes his time getting out of there.”

Slender first handled Bertrando before the 1991 Del Mar Futurity, which was the horse’s second start and first stakes victory. Slender wasn’t working at Hollywood Park this year when Gary Brinson, the starter at the Inglewood track, called and asked him to be there for Bertrando, who ran second to Best Pal.

“Bertrando’s got a few moves when he goes to the gate,” Slender said. “He can give the pony girl trouble. Just before loading, he’s wheeled around and almost gotten away from me a few times.”

Shortly before Bertrando was loaded for the Santa Anita Handicap in March, the colt’s bridle fell apart.

“That was a nightmare coming true,” Slender said. “I got him by the neck and we blocked him off. Flashing before me was the scene of a horse running through the barn area instead of running in a million-dollar race.”

Bertrando didn’t leave the gate smoothly that day and ran ninth, the only time he hasn’t been in the money in a 15-race career.